


Demons Can't Feel Love Anyway

by ghostyspook



Series: you do the math, you expect the trouble [1]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Demon Shane Madej, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, My First Work in This Fandom, RPF, Wing Kink, and I had to, anyway, i've never written rpf and i made a separate account just to post this good lord, jk there's no sex in this, maybe i'll add a second part that's like loving smut or whatever, pls read it even tho it's trash and i wrote it in two hours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-10 00:02:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16459619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostyspook/pseuds/ghostyspook
Summary: Buzzfeed Unsolved had been a good enough gig for Shane before Supernatural had decided to just start… going on fucking tour. And Shane knew that while it was the logical next step for them to branch out and actually look at haunted places, keep the viewers coming in, he still hated it.





	1. The Sallie House

**Author's Note:**

> yeah uh, this has a happy ending and is maybe cute so. read at ur own risk. i know rpf is bad i just don't give a shit at this point i'm sorry

Shane Madej was an Old Demon. He’d been on earth for a long time, he had a human body that he had made with care, and he knew how humans worked, for the most part. It had been centuries since he had been “home”, his instincts were different now. He didn’t have the surface level anger, the rash decision making of a younger demon. He had seen empires rise and fall; anger and rash decision making had never helped them, neither had a strong lust for power, and Shane knew that. Shane knew he didn’t want world domination, so he never went “home”, he made a new one, with humans, with Buzzfeed, with the creatures who believed he wanted every single one of them dead. He figured it was safe enough, he had an inner demon, he wasn’t a showoff demon, he didn’t possess people, he didn’t fuck around near ghosts, and he was off the radar of any supernatural investigator and not enough of a problem that home or heaven had to come up and attempt to tell him what to do. 

Buzzfeed Unsolved had been a good enough gig for Shane before Supernatural had decided to just start… going on fucking tour. And Shane knew that while it was the logical next step for them to branch out and actually look at haunted places, keep the viewers coming in, he still hated it. When you’re a demon who hails from hottest hell, something that you don’t want to do is wander around near ghosts when your partner is trying to find evidence of them because… boy oh boy do ghosts not like demonic presences. Even the apartment building that he’d moved into had had all the ooky spooky specters cleared out of it within days of him moving on. 

And besides that, putting Ryan at risk like that? Letting him wander around decrepit houses, with floors that could go crashing down at any moment? Ghosts that could muster up enough strength to, to push him down the stairs, or grab his arm and twist, anything that could hurt his… partner. (Emphasis not on the his; emphasis on the partner. A lot of emphasis guidelines to keep himself from doing anything stupid.) Anything that could stop Ryan from getting home safe and sound so he can keep coming into work. 

So yeah, at first Shane had his… objections. 

Until he found out where Ryan wanted to fucking go. 

The island of the dolls? Just a few sad, pesky spirits that he could easily tell to fuck off, and wouldn't try to fuck with Ryan anyway. Winchester Mansion? Same story, nothing that could harm Ryan except for shitty architectural design. But the Sallie House… that was another fucking ballpark. If Ryan went to that house he could get seriously hurt, and then he would come back to Shane changed, or possessed, and there would be no more golden spirited Ryan running around the office telling him murder stories, and Shane just couldn’t have that, for some reason. 

“Maybe humanity is growing on me.” Shane mumbled to his empty room, and then he said fuck it and texted Ryan to tell him that he would go. He would do this… ghost hunting thing. Whatever. Ryan’s enthusiastic smiley faces in response to his text made his wings twitch, sure, but so did the enthusiasm of his other coworkers, sometimes. He’s only one demon against a tide of human appreciation and emotions and they’re bound to rub off on him. It’s whatever. He’s still a demon, he’s still a bad… entity, and he still has to hide it because no matter how many times he makes Ryan smile, or how many times he makes him laugh so hard he’s wheezing and crying, Ryan hates demons. Shane is a demon. The two facts aren’t mutually exclusive, Shane being a demon would affect their friendship, their partnership, their… dynamic on screen, their chemistry (screen chemistry, his mind snaps at him, it’s on screen), and there’s nothing to be done about that, so Shane should stop thinking about it and go to fucking sleep, and not dream about Ryan.

(He dreams about Ryan. He dreams that he can’t protect them from the demon in the Sallie House, that it’s somehow older than he is, that he loses Ryan because Ryan won’t let Shane save him because Shane is a demon. Demons can’t have dreams; demons can only have visions, something tells him, something deep inside his being that rumbles when it speaks. Shane tells it to stop talking shit and goes back to sleep.)

He’s proven in his fears when they visit Father Thomas, and Ryan gets chills just… being told about demons. Because Ryan is scared of demons, and he only interacts with them because he either doesn’t know they’re, or he’s hunting them for proof. Ryan would fear him if he knew, and Shane lives with it, he just does. Father Thomas obviously doesn’t suspect anything wrong with him, seeing as he’s probably a fraud, but Ryan seems to take comfort in the bullshit he spews so Shane lets it slide, even if being in the church makes his wings curl over his shoulders anxiously in the astral plane, and he has to fight to keep his hands from lengthening into claws. If it calms Ryan down then it’s… worth it. Because Shane could never calm him down, not with how much Ryan’s subconscious picks up spiritually. But Shane tells himself that it doesn’t matter anyway, it’s not like he wants to be there for Ryan, wants to be what Ryan uses to comfort himself. It’s fine. 

Or at least, it is until they get to the Sallie House, when Ryan almost loses his fucking mind. 

Shane can feel it from the moment he sees the house, there’s a darkness there for sure, and it consumes the entire house. Instantly he can feel the eyes of his sibling, watching him from one of the windows no doubt, wondering if he’s here for a fight, wondering if they could win if things got ugly. Shane doesn’t bother with replying with his own energy, he knows he could win. He knows that he will probably always win against any demon younger than him, but he still fears… uneasy on Ryan’s behalf. Of course, he can’t feel… fear but he can feel sympathy for what Ryan is probably already feeling, judging by how much fear he’s already giving off. 

“What’s on your mind, little guy?”

Ryan jumps like Shane had just attempted to stab him and looks at him, his eyes already going wild before he responds.

“It’s nothing man there’s just something uh… something different about this place. It’s freaking me the fuck out, you know?”

Shane doesn’t know, but he can guess. Ryan’s heartbeat is accelerating by the second and he certainly isn’t giving off any relaxed energies. Shane can’t say that, of course, it wouldn’t be worth it to tell his friend he’s a demon right before he possibly fights a demon for him, but he thinks about it for one entire second, one blissful imaginative moment where Ryan smiles and tells him it’s okay, and they walk into that infested house together, relaxed. 

Instead Ryan goes into the house already having a panic attack, and Shane shoves whatever demon is living in this house below the foundations for the night, and finds himself having to learn on the spot how not to let his energy leak through his vessel the way it normally does. (Those stupid fucking flashlights are the bane of his existence and he hopes that they never fucking use them again, and he’s serious about that.) And when he finally has it under control he turns the flashlight on the chair on and off for fun, then they end the investigation to get ready to go to sleep, and Ryan is endlessly restless. 

Shane at first figures that Ryan’s still nervous from the stress of the day, or that he can feel the other demon’s energies reaching up through the basement, in which case Shane was going to have to give someone a very strict talk. And while Ryan is still scared, he’s not calming himself down the way he was on the island of the dolls or at the winchester house. He just keeps… working himself up into a frenzy. And all at once, it dawns on Shane what must be happening. Ryan is sensitive to his… demon energies after a night of being scared, it’s making him… worse, and Ryan is just lingering close to Shane trying to get comfort but Shane is making his best friend worse.

He pulls his sleeping away slightly, trying not to be obvious about it, but he can feel his astral self compressing out of guilt. Normally his wings kind of… hover around his body, casually brushing against the people around him, but right now they’re wrapped tightly around his body, and he has to focus on keeping them to himself instead of letting them brush Ryan and upset him even more, and he figures he’ll be lucky if he manages to sleep without letting his wings uncurl and freak Ryan out even more….

And then he feels something… strange. 

Ryan’s soul is attempting to reach out and snag the edge of his wing. 

Ryan’s very human soul, is reaching out to try and grab his astral wing, to pull it closer to him. For… comfort. 

Shane’s entire mind blanked. Ryan’s soul wanting a demon near it was uhhhh, not good news. It was probably definitely bad. But as long as Ryan’s physical body doesn’t follow suit it’s fine. 

Then Ryan’s physical body follows suit and he loses his mind. Ryan mumbles a quick “I’m moving closer to you, I don’t care.” Shane barely heard it as his mind started scrambling. If Ryan wanted to be nearer to him to be comfortable then that was weird. Maybe they’d just spent so much time together that Ryan just found him comforting? But why would his soul try to grab on to him? What did he want? Did he want all of Shane’s… presence? 

Ryan’s soul stretched out again, poking at his wing, urging it to unfold, so Shane… let it. He let his aura curl around Ryan’s shoulders and his soul felt warm to the touch… so comforting… like breathing fresh air… and he snapped his aura back faster than he had ever before because no way in hell was he chancing Ryan doing this. Not now, in a fucking demon house, was he going to do this.

They ended up having to leave before the night is over, and in the airport the next day he gently let’s his aura wrap around Ryan’s shoulders, and Ryan is asleep on the airport floor before Shane can even tell him to relax. It’s an interesting development for sure; but not an… unwelcome one. If Ryan was that comfortable around him without Shane making any attempt to trick him into thinking he was nice or anything, then just maybe he was… he was someone that Shane could go for, someone that Shane could trust. But, no. No this could just be a fluke, and even if it isn’t who’s to say that Ryan wants anything else from Shane? That Ryan trusts Shane enough to not run screaming if Shane showed him his wings or… cradled him in his arms, or kissed him or…. 

But no. No amount of demonic aura, or trust, or friendship, can turn a straight man gay and that’s all there is to it. So instead of waking him up and talking to him about… everything. Telling him everything from Shane’s feelings deep inside to the extra body parts distributed across the astral realms, he let’s his aura wash over Ryan, and the other man sleeps until they have to get on the plane.


	2. The Goatman's Bridge

Once Shane knows that he can calm Ryan down with his aura, he tries to use it sparingly even though it’s hard to. (He thinks that maybe this could be his demon subconscious that this could be accidental manipulation, something that he’s doing without knowing he’s doing it to get Ryan’s guard down, and it scares the shit out of him.) Because when Ryan comes in late, looking stressed as hell, mumbling about whatever hell case he’s been up all night researching, it’s so easy to stretch his astral wing over him, warm him up from his soul outward. It’s so easy to send waves of his energy over Ryan, just to watch him sigh and relax against the back of his chair. Just watching Ryan be… calm. 

However, the one downside about watching him feel happy and be safe because of Shane, filled the demon with some sort of… protective surge of feelings. When his aura is brushing against Ryan, Shane feels like he could break the neck of any damn person who gets too close to his person. (He needs to work harder on putting the emphasis on the “person” part and not on the “his” part; because Ryan isn’t a possession, Ryan is a person. His inner demon subconscious or whatever needs to get a grip because it’s the 21st century and people aren’t possessions.) But the pride he feels at getting Ryan to be calm seems to mean to him on the inside, that he is the Only One who gets to be around His Calm Ryan, which isn’t ideal. 

(It doesn’t stop him from comforting Ryan whenever he can; letting his energy stretch out over his friend until all of his nervous tics and anxious twitching disappears.)

Sometimes when Ryan is really stressed, when he’s having nightmares in his sleep on locations, or having nightmares at home and coming into work unable to look Shane in the eyes, he makes a long drawn out groany sigh when he relaxes, that rushes straight into the centre of his being and warms him from the inside out as well.

(He dreams of it at night sometimes, of the sighing noise Ryan makes when he’s completely serene. When Ryan, in real life, says that sometimes there’s serenity in being totally fucked, Shane nearly dies right there in the moment. No one has to know.)

When Ryan tells him that he wants to go to a bridge in the woods for the demon episode, Shane isn’t pleased. Demons love bridges, demons love woods. (There’s something about the atmosphere that makes it feels like the Old Days, like he can shift into whatever form he pleases and choose whether or not to be benevolent based on how he’s feeling.) And Shane knows that since it’s a demon episode, Ryan will be freaking out anyway, but a real demon? In real woods? It could be a threat. (He still says yes; because he’s starting to realize he has a soft spot for Ryan, there’s a feeling surrounding him that he can’t remember how to name.) And when Ryan tells him they want to buy a ouija board for the investigation, he makes sure that they just go to a toy store to grab one, instead of risking a… crystal shop, or a witch shop, or a magic shop, where there’s the risk of one of them being able to do… something without his interference. (EIther way he takes it home with him, instead of letting Ryan keep it. He tells himself that it’s just so that Ryan won’t play with it on his own out of curiosity, but he knows Ryan never would anyway.) And only when they get to the bridge and the surrounding forests does he realize that he should never have done it. 

Goatman, as it turns out, is Old. He may not be as old as Shane but he’s still up there, which means he’s won a lot of fights, which means Shane has to play his cards carefully. There’s a chance that if he keeps his aura over Ryan the entire time, the demon will just assume that Ryan is under his protection (for… reasons, reasons like Shane memorizing his coffee and Chipotle orders, reasons like Shane stretching his astral over Ryan in his sleep to chase away the nightmares, reasons he can’t think about for too long) and leave them alone. Or, he could see Ryan as a target that will weaken Shane (weaken Shane like in his dreams, where Ryan yells at him, where Ryan dies because he doesn’t trust Shane to save him, where Ryan finds out what he is and runs, leaves him alone) and go straight for Ryan without even noticing Shane. It’s not something he wants to risk, and Goatman isn’t someone that he wants to physically fight in front of his… person. 

So the answer, of course, is to steal Goatman’s house, thus giving him nothing to tether onto in the mortal world, thus sending him either out into the ether or back downstairs for a decade or two, just long enough for Shane’s claim to be declared meaningless without him revisiting, something innocuous enough that maybe Shane could say it was just something he did for his Human Role that he didn’t intend to mean anything. (The demon inside rumbles that intentions are all that matter, and he ignores it. His intentions don’t mean anything regarding Ryan, obviously.) It’s the only safe option, unless he lets Ryan burn him then run, like in his dreams, but that’s not safe for Shane. 

(He only starts thinking of the holy water because when Ryan starts fiddling his pants for the water gun he nearly loses his mind. His wings snap in the astral and all he feels is… that same feeling, the one he can’t name. Can’t figure out. The holy water snaps him out of it, reminds him that he… isn’t like Ryan. Can’t be like Ryan. Ryan doesn’t fear him now but he… would.)

When Ryan casts the salt circle it’s almost too perfect, Goatman can’t get in to throw Shane the fuck off his bridge, and do something to Ryan after, and Shane is in the perfect position of immunity to do one sided bartering. A mortal created the salt circle then sat with Shane inside of it; meaning Shane was trusted to break the circle by said mortal, but Goatman wasn’t, and it was the chance he had been waiting for. The instant the Goatman was unable to spell his name, Shane could feel him leaving, could hear his shrieks across every plane his ears could hear, and relaxed for the first time the entire night. 

Ryan slept on the way back to the hotel they were staying at, and Shane let both of his wings extend to wrap around him in the cramped spaces, and thought about what it meant that if Goatman had touched Ryan he would have been able to feel nothing but… pain. About what it meant that he would wake up from nightmares, gasping and clawing at nothing, his chest tight and his wings wrapped around his chest, feeling nothing but fear and pain, and… loss. 

He wondered, distantly, why Ryan’s soul searched out his aura so instantly for comfort. Why, on that night in the Sallie House, he had been unable to stand the night without Shane’s comfort, but every other time he’s been able to last through the night as long as Shane’s wings stretched across him. He understood, after being with humans so long, that friends were comforts, but none of Shane’s other friends reached for him the same way Ryan did. 

He decided it was probably nothing, but when he went to sleep that night he didn’t have any nightmares with Ryan in the room, curled up in an astral nest of his wings. Shane’s last thought before his eyes slip closed, was if Ryan would adore his physical wings as much as he seemed to adore the astral ones, if he would curl up in the feathers as readily as he did when they were nothing more than layers of light; incomprehensible to his eyes.


	3. Return to Winchester House

Things do nothing but get better and better as Buzzfeed Unsolved goes along. Shane has more followers on Twitter than he had ever anticipated, more people knew his “name” than he had ever thought would. He and Ryan would hit the town and people would stop and ask for pictures, people were sending them packages for their birthdays, or just for running the show. Things couldn’t have been better. 

Except. 

He was starting to think that maybe Ryan was… noticing things. Sometimes Shane would be looking at Ryan, watching the way all the different colours of his wings in the astral plane could compliment Ryan’s skin, what it would be like to ruffle his hair with his wings, wondering if Ryan would like flying, and Ryan would be… looking back. It wasn’t anything suspicious or reproachful but it was… something. There was something soft and pondering, and he was starting to notice it when reviewing the footage of their recent shoots. Shane would taunt a ghost (which was always quaking in fear in the corner, because an Old Demon was telling them to threaten it and they couldn’t take it, fucking wimps) and Ryan would look at him like he was a hero, like he was pleased to be… protected. But that wasn’t right, that wasn’t… a thing. Ryan didn’t ever need or want to be protected, he was his own person and he wasn’t a child. He could realistically pick up Shane’s (mortal) body and toss it against whatever wall is farthest away, at any time. It was more like Ryan was, in awe? Except that wasn’t right either because Ryan wasn’t a blushing fantasy character, he was a real person. Shane figured, realistically, that maybe it was just… thankfulness. Thankfulness that Ryan wasn’t alone in these old, decrepit houses, that he had Shane next to him. 

(The demon deep inside of Shane always purred at that, at thinking that Ryan was thankful for the Comfort, for the Closeness, for Shane Being There, that maybe he wanted something more, that maybe he wanted to press Shane against the wall and thank him in a different way, that maybe he wanted to love Shane back-)

So, okay, maybe Shane had also taken the leap and realized that Shane was… in love with Ryan, and Ryan sometimes looked at Shane like he was thankful to have a friend, and the fans had started a conspiracy that he was a demon. 

(Demons aren’t supposed to be able to feel love, and he dreams sometimes that once he has Ryan, Ryan finds out, and doesn’t know whether or not Shane loves him, and Shane doesn’t know how to prove it, and Ryan leaves. Ryan reveals him to the world and hates him, and Shane is still in love, and Ryan never was.)

Their conspiracies weren’t all too close, mind you, none of their proof consisted of moments where he was… letting his demonic features closer to their perceptions, but some of it was… almost there. They noted the way he taunted demons, the things he would say, how he never felt any fear on locations, how everything he did was to make Ryan laugh. Easy things like that. Things anyone could notice. Hell, things Ryan could potentially notice if he thought about it for too long, if he watched too much footage, or talked to too many people who complained that they were never able to get both of them forward facing in a shot without telling them how to stand. 

So yeah, things were going great, up until Season 5 of Buzzfeed Unsolved Supernatural, because Ryan didn’t want to sleep in the same room as him. 

At first it was the two separate hotel rooms, then it was the sleeping in different locations on the shoot, and Shane knew something was wrong, and his mind spiralled.   
“HE DOESN’T LOVE YOU,” his inner demon was screaming, “HE KNOWS WHAT YOU ARE, SOMEONE HE KNOWS. HE FOUND OUT AND HE CAN’T LOVE YOU, YOU ARE A MONSTER.”

(Shane sleeps in his hotel room alone and dreams that Ryan sees his true form and burns him in holy water, and listens to Shane’s screaming with no expression. That Shane tells him he loves him, begs him to believe him, and Ryan leaves, because Shane is a monster.)

He tells Ryan the next day that he didn’t get much sleep, so he’s excited to have a nap on location, and Ryan laughs and calls him a dick. So hey, maybe the budget just got increased and Ryan wanted to splurge. Maybe, maybe, he just wanted to watch a movie Shane hated or something, or he wanted to jack off (his inner demon purrs, violently, and his wings are aching to flap out and feel, but he slams them farther into the astral before they can even make an attempt) but whatever the reasoning, Ryan hadn’t slept well either, so maybe it could all just go back to normal the next time they shot at a location. 

(The entire car ride his wings flutter around Ryan without him telling them to, it’s like they missed him, and he can hear the inner demon wailing for contact, but he forces them to stay back. Ryan wanted space, so Shane was going to fucking give it to him, if it was the last thing he did.)

(His inner demon seemed to think it would be.)

And with that they were back at the Winchester House, like nothing had changed at all, and he and Ryan were just the guys who hunt ghouls, and the ghouls scattered away from his aura like he was spraying bleach out of his pores, and Ryan’s own spirit soaked it up like it had been aching for it. He did what he always did, taunt some ghouls and make Ryan laugh. But Ryan did things… differently. He cracked more jokes, and casually talked about how easy Shane would sleep, and Shane did his usual asshole banter bit. Nothing unusual at all, on the surface, just guys being dudes, dudes hunting ghouls. They wander through the same dusty old corridors, and hunt ghosts that are too busy hiding from Shane to haunt, and Shane allows Ryan to go it alone, for the most part, albeit reluctantly. 

(These ghosts are already scared of you, his inner demon reminds him, they will stay away from Your Ryan, they know he is Your Ryan, the only beings who do not are the humans. He tells it to fuck off. It laughs at him the entire time he holds Ryan’s hands for the Ouija board session; urges him to lean forward and claim him in the eyes of humans, to think of how rough Ryan’s mouth might feel against his, to just think about whether or not Ryan’s eyes would flutter like when he was tired.)

The thing that riles him up, is that there’s a bitchass ghost who actually tries to talk to Ryan. They hadn’t dared to come near Ryan when he and Shane were holding hands over the ouija board, had stayed huddled in the corner of the rooms, not making eye contact. When Ryan had asked if the ghosts were scared of anything Shane’s pulse had jumped.

(What about you, Ryan? Are you scared of anything? How his heartbeat had pounded, flexing his wings out to remind the ghosts that no, they certainly weren’t scared of anything at all, so it was best not to answer.)

The ghost that had whispered, scared Ryan after Shane went and calmed him down completely, had vanished the instant Ryan had whipped around. Shane hadn’t thought much, he could always excuse it as the wind, or someone on set, later. It was fine. Ryan closing his eyes, and focusing, was not good. If he kept attempting to… channel or search his feelings, there was a chance he could feel Shane, like really feel Shane’s energy, and that couldn’t happen. 

And then they went up to the attack, and a ghost tried to warn Ryan about Shane, and Shane was forced to snuff it out. Or, the ghost that either tried to hit on Ryan, or called him dumb, that one had had to go too. 

(His inner demon had loved destroying ghosts who had nearly endangered what he and Ryan had, how his aura had filtered through the house with happiness.)

Ryan had been so scared, alone, that Shane had had to wrap him in his wings the instant he saw him. He just had needed… something that Shane could provide. So he did. 

He didn’t think about how Ryan hadn’t understood why he was so scared that night after years of exposure to haunted location, he didn’t think about whatever he had seen Ryan’s eyes when the voice had tried to… warn him about Shane, because Shane was a monster, and even though Ryan couldn’t see it, every other supernatural creature could. 

(And if Ryan ever found out he wouldn’t hesitate to hurt Shane. He pictured the holy water gun, pictured exorcisms and how much they hurt, pictured holy chains, pictured being in a cage, pictured being trapped by the human he loved.)

When Shane got home he did everything he could to ward off nightmares, and instead he had something worse.   
(They were curled up in the bed of a haunted house, pressed against each other, Ryan had his hands in Shane’s hair and his face in Shane’s neck, and all he felt was safe and secure, and when Ryan pressed his lips to his, all he felt was safe and secure. He woke up… sad.)

Fuck humanity, and fuck having feelings, and fuck Ryan Bergara for making him have them. 

(Yes, his inner demon was screaming, please fuck Ryan Bergara!”)

Shane let his head flop tiredly onto the pillows and sighed. Because yeah, that was the problem wasn’t it?


	4. Proof

Ryan Bergara finding out Shane was a fucking demon (by accident) had never been on the list of things Shane wanted to do with Ryan. It was, actually, the last thing in the world he had wanted to happen. The one thing he had been actively dreading and avoiding, wasting hours over going over how to hide it, how to appear as nothing more than human, for the rest of his life. 

It doesn’t go down that way. 

Ryan had invited him over to review footage, had told him there would be popcorn and Shane had trundled on over, had told Ryan to go ahead and take a look at Shane’s footage, see what he’d missed sleeping all the way over on the other side of the house. It wasn’t until he walked through Ryan’s apartment door did he realize that something was wrong, because Ryan was sitting nervously on his own couch, staring at his laptop with the widest eyes Shane had ever seen, shaking. 

And Shane’s heart dropped to his fucking stomach. Ryan hadn’t acknowledged him, not even to look up at him and say hello, and he knew there was no point in trying to act casual, but Lord did he try anyway. 

“Hey man, anything that I’ll find compelling this round? Any full body ghosties?”

Ryan jumped so hard he nearly fell off the couch, and once he saw it was Shane he instantly backed up away from him, and yeah, it was too late. 

“I guess uh, I guess you saw something on the footage?” Shane knows it’s too late, he knows he’s grasping, he knows that if he left even a second recording device on while he was slaughtering those ghosts that Ryan knew. Ryan knew and hated him now, so that was that, all’s well that ends well, apparently.

Ryan’s yelling something. Probably about monsters and lying, about Shane being a monster, about Shane being something that he can’t love. Ryan’s spirit is twisting away from him and it’s everything from his nightmares but more, because this is His Ryan, and he can’t wake up from this, and Ryan is walking towards him. 

Shane doesn’t realize he’s shaking until his phone drops out of his hand and onto the floor, and just makes Ryan take another step closer. 

Shane doesn’t realize he’s crying until he can taste the salt.

Shane doesn’t realize he’s on the floor until Ryan’s above him, and he has to get away because Ryan is going to hurt him. Ryan is either going to hurt him or, or hate him, or tell him to leave and never come back and it’s all he can do to try and shuffle away on the floor, his hands above his head flinching away from the punch that he knows will come that he can’t block, because he can’t hurt Ryan, he can’t, he can’t-

“Shane?”

It’s the fucking voice that gets him, the same voice that asks him if he’s awake on shoots, that asks him if his bits were good this video, that asks him if he really does think Ryan is stupid, and all Shane can do is whimper helplessly.

“Shane, Shane hey I’m not-not gonna hurt you buddy,” but Ryan’s voice is trembling and he’s afraid of him, Ryan is afraid of Shane, and that can’t be fixed, and all he can do is let out a keening whine, his inner demon wailing in pain, his aura being crushed every second-

And then Ryan’s hands are around his neck, and he’s kneeling in front of Shane, holding him, and the whining stops, tapers off inside his throat as he presses his head against Ryan’s hand, and breathes. On instinct, he almost reaches for Ryan’s soul, but then remembers that he… can’t. Ryan’s soul doesn’t want to be reached, and he lets out another shuddering gasp and just listens to Ryan’s voice.

“Shane, hey it’s okay, it’s okay I’m not going to hurt you, you’re safe, it’s-it’s just me, it’s just Ryan, even if you’re… more than Shane. It’s just us.”

Ryan’s voice is trembling but he keeps on talking because he’s so brave, so brave he doesn’t need Shane’s protection, so brave he can comfort a crying demon on his floor, but Shane can’t let him do this. 

“Please don’t cage me.”

“What?”

“Please don’t, don’t uh…” Shane hiccups, his eyes shut tight, “don’t use me as proof, please I can’t… I can’t be tortured I just can’t do it, Ryan please, please I know you hate demons more than anyone else on this planet but please, I’ll leave you alone, I’ll-I’ll go somewhere else just please don’t hurt me, I can’t do it, I can’t-” and Shane’s sobbing again, then, and somewhere along the way Ryan tucked his head into his chest, and is still stroking his head, along the nape of his neck. 

They stay that way for… a while for sure. Long enough that Shane is just sitting there, feeling Ryan practically pet him like he’s a frightened animal, still hearing his inner demon whine sadly, until Ryan speaks again. 

“You know, demons are supposed to be scary,” Shane stiffens, but Ryan continues, “and you sure looked scary when you were strangling ghouls in the Winchester House, but you’re my friend, you know.”

There’s silence, for a while, before Shane can speak. 

“You were scared, at first. I know you were, I’m sorry I-”

“Shane it’s okay, I’m not… mad.”

“You should be.” Inner demon doesn’t like that statement, if the louder whimpers are to go buy.

“Eh,” says Ryan, “it’s debatable.”

Shane can’t help but laugh, but still closes his eyes against Ryan’s shoulder, hears his heartbeat, steady in his ears, it’s slightly faster than normal but now… ghost level heart failure. 

“How much did you… see?”

Ryan sighs and pulls away slightly, just to look Shane in the eyes, then look at the computer, and haul them both up onto the couch to look at it, still clutching onto Shane the entire time. When he presses play on the video, Shane instantly sees his mistake. He’d hit the wrong button on the night camera, and it had caught him shifting into a demon, and calling the ghosts of the house. The shot Ryan repaused it on featured Shane’s full form; his curled horns, the golden eyes, the wings, the only thing out of shot were his claws because they were blurry. Ryan really had seen everything, which means he had heart Shane describe him as His Ryan, had watched him obliterate the ghost who called him thick (or thicc, as Shane’s inner demon had insisted it was meant to be), had seen that Shane… felt that way. 

They sit there and look at where the video is paused for a long time, until Shane looks over and Ryan and sees him already looking back, eyes soft. 

“Shane, do you wanna know why I wanted to sleep in separate rooms?”

“I thought it was because maybe you had figured it out and you thought I was a monster and I just… I don’t know. I thought maybe you were tired of putting up with my skepticism.”

Ryan rolls his eyes, but continues. “This house was the house where I realized I had a… thing for you. A thing that hasn’t gone away.”

It’s like all of time freezes for a second, while the gears in Shane’s head spin, trying to catch up with what Ryan had said to him, what was implied in that statement. 

“But even with my, even though I-” Shane was stammering, and he was aware of it. 

“Well I was having… suspicions. No one can sleep in a haunted house that easily, and no other person could calm me down as quickly as you could, and the way the spirit box would warn me not to leave, or to stay in one place… I don’t know, I caught on. I think seeing it was what kind of uh, threw me for a loop but like… you’re still Shane. You still wrote an entire fucking hotdog series to piss me off, I don’t care about your extra… limbs.”

Ryan leans forwards, the way he sometimes does when they’re doing a bit and he’s trying to prove a point, and then their lips are touching, and every nerve in this body that Shane made himself is singing. Ryan’s hands are making their way to back of Shane’s head and it’s all he can do not to moan loudly and embarrassingly into Ryan’s mouth, yet Ryan seems to know that’s what he wants. 

But it’s so new, so they just stay… close, holding onto each other, and just end up just wrapped around each other; astral wings real wings; everything laid out on the same plane, so that Ryan’s human eyes can see the cosmos.

And yeah, Ryan loves his physical wings as much as he had dreamed he would, and Ryan wouldn’t leave him alone and scared, and he knew that now, and things had been great but now they could only get better.

**Author's Note:**

> might expand this into something; make ryan's pov or like smut or whatever, comment suggestions tho! shoutout to shyanlibrary for posting a prompt


End file.
